‘Wolf Hall’ Director on How He Pulled off The Silent Scene That Relayed a Thousand Words

Wolf Hall director Peter Kosminsky selected this shot — which sees courtier Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance) and newly appointed Queen of England Jane Seymour (Kate Phillips) walking silently through a magnificent hall toward an uncertain meeting with King Henry VIII (Damian Lewis) — because of the immense technical and emotional challenges it posed.

“We need to help the audience understand the world of Tudor England 500 years ago, which is very unfamiliar to us,” he explains. “It’s a scene in which absolutely nothing is said. It’s all visual. [Seymour] has just had her first conjugal night with Henry VIII. Cromwell and Jane are in love and would have married if Henry VIII hadn’t intervened and stolen her for himself. That subtext has to be conveyed in this shot with no words.”

The lengthy shot involved “tracking backward with Steadicam, on a wide-angle lens, over a very uneven surface: an ancient monastery that predates the period depicted,” Kosminsky says. Camera operator Chris Reynolds had “to go backward up a steep staircase ahead of [the actors], which is not easy.”

The light pouring in from vaulted windows had to be controlled with the use of constructed boxes. “We could control the light in that space completely,” Kosminsky explains. “It was almost like a studio.”

This story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.